Monument
by quixotic-x
Summary: Post Mockingjay. "Everyone is rebuilding their lives. I can finally be happy. Be hopeful. My world is no longer a nightmare." two-shot.


**A/N: **Hey guys! So I've had this story written for quite a while. Ever since I finished Mockingjay, actually. I never got around to publishing it because I wanted to write more of the story, but then high school started again and things got pretty busy and I just never got around to writing more. I've decided to make this a two-shot.. and hopefully I'll find the time to write the second half of this soon, along with updating my other story! And also, for those of you who have read my other Hunger Games story, The Power of Words, and have expressed how much you want me to continue it.. I am truly sorry, but that I wrote that story with the intentions of it being a one-shot and that's how it's going to stay. I really don't have the time to continue it, even if I wanted to anyways. I hope I don't disappoint too many people! I really do appreciate your love for that story! Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this story and reviews are very much appreciated! Love you all!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own The Hunger Games trilogy. I also do not own the song Monument by A Day to Remember, from which the title of this story came from.

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><p><strong>Monument<strong>

_Nobody knows the trouble I've seen._

The afternoon breeze sends a slight chill through her body as she lies facing the sky. All around her, the woods just outside of District 12 provides the comfort and familiarity that brings peace to her mind. This calm and relaxed mood does not always last for very long, but Katniss Everdeen is glad that there is a place for her to retreat to whenever the nightmares and flashbacks are too painful to bear. Despite all the horrible events that have taken place in and around this location, it is still home. It is where she grew up and it is where some of her most treasured memories have occurred. Taking refuge among the grass and trees seem to be the only natural thing to do whenever she feels like she might once again lose grip on her sanity.

Clutching a handful of dandelions in her right hand, she closes her eyes and forces herself to take a deep breath. _Everything is okay now. Why are you still worried? Why are you still so afraid of losing everything?_ This is what the nightmares cause her to ask herself. _It's been more than a year. The revolution was successful. Everyone is rebuilding their lives. I can finally be happy. Be hopeful. My world is no longer a nightmare. _

So why do the nightmares still come back to haunt her? No matter what she tells herself during the light of day, Katniss cannot escape the tortured screams and fearful eyes that come to revisit her every night. The pained faces of all of those she has lost float in her mind until she forces herself to wake up. Even faces of those that she barely knew or didn't know at all find a way to break through her unconscious thoughts. It is like a horrible promise that is sure to be kept. It is a way for President Snow and his corrupt world to forever etch themselves into her being.

Katniss absentmindedly twirls the stem of a dandelion as she bites her lips and recounts her latest terror.

_The world is made of fire. At least, it seems that way as flames engulf every structure that once made up District 12. Everything is falling to the ground, lost in the smoke and ashes. Even the sky is turned into an inescapable inferno. All around her, screams of fear and anguish pierce the poisonous air. She can recognize their voices and she runs amidst the burning buildings, not feeling the heat, desperate to find the ones she loves. Her eyes, wide and frenzied, search for any sign of Prim, her mother, Finnick, Cinna, Gale… anyone. But she is alone. She is left to endure this torture alone. _

_Just as she is about to collapse and let the flames overtake her, she catches sight of a figure forming just a few feet ahead. It is a person of small height and a thin frame and Katniss instantly recognizes her. Even with half of her body covered in the malicious flames and almost all of her hair burned off, Katniss knows the person who is walking straight towards her. _

"_Prim," she whispers, tears falling from her eyes._

"_Katniss." Her eyes are sad and desperate. She is only a few inches away now and Katniss reaches up her arms to grab hold of her. She doesn't know what more she could do. How could she protect her little sister? How could she stop the flames from eating away at her?_

"_Katniss," Prim's voice is weak and pleading. "Katniss, please help me. It hurts. Everything hurts."_

_Katniss feels her whole body tremble at the sound of her sister's desperate voice. "I know, hun, I know. We'll find a way to save you, I swear."_

_But she knows her words are useless. How can she save her? As much as she tries to touch her sister, she always seems just a few inches away from her grasp. How can she help someone that she can't even reach?_

"_I can't stay much longer anymore, Katniss. Please save me," Prim's voice sounds much more distant than before and Katniss feels the emptiness go through her as she experiences losing her sister once again._

"_We'll go find help," she insists. And then she hears it. The sound of a voice that she had gotten accustomed to hearing. The voice of a person whom she would seek out whenever things got too painful at District 13. The voice of the only person who knew what she was going through when she was at her lowest. The voice of a person she had grown to love._

"_Katniss!"_

_She turns around wildly, searching for the owner of the voice. _

"_Finnick? Finnick! Where are you?"_

"_I'm right here, Katniss. I can't stay much longer, either."_

_Katniss lets out a sob as she finds Finnick trapped underneath a burning piece of wood that was used to hold up a sign for one of the stores in the town. His skin is already badly burned but beneath all of the charred and torched pieces, Katniss can still see traces of the handsome boy that he once was. She races towards him, Prim following closely behind._

"_You should see how you look, Katniss. You're a mess," Finnick teases. Even though his tone is lighthearted, it only brings Katniss more pain. She wished more than ever that Finnick was still around to comment on her appearance, even if it was always rather rude._

"_I wouldn't be talking if I were you. You would have nightmares every time you slept if you saw what you look like right now." Oh, the irony of her attempt at banter._

"_Oh? And is that the same reason for your lack of sleep?" Amidst the flames and smoke, he flashes one of his dazzling smiles. Katniss lets out a sound that was a mixture of a laugh and a sob. For a moment, it felt as if everything was okay again. As if Finnick was really there before her and there were no flames or evil or death to separate them. Then all at once, the grief and pain hits her like a bullet in the back._

"_I'm sorry, Finnick. I'm sorry I couldn't save you," she cries out. "I had no other choice. We needed to get out of there and you… you were…"_

_Finnick attempts to shake his head. "You did the right thing, sweetheart. I was a goner."_

_This only causes Katniss to shed more tears. "You didn't deserve this! Neither of you did! They had no right to take your lives like that!"_

_Finally, she feels the touch of Prim's hand on her shoulder. "It was a war, Katniss. We all knew what kind of danger we were in. We all knew what we were signing up for when we agreed to help."_

"_That doesn't make it okay! Prim, you were supposed to grow up with a happy life and become an excellent healer. You were born for it! And Finnick, you had a whole life ahead of you with Annie. You were supposed to grow old together!" her voice was starting to sound crazed and deranged._

"_That can't happen for us anymore," Finnick says. "But for you, a life of happiness and love is still possible. You just have to open up to the others. Let them know how you're hurting and let them heal you. Let him heal you, Katniss."_

_She knows who he's talking about but she can't bring herself to think about him. Not right now. "I can't. It's too hard, Finnick! It's too-"_

_Her words are cut off with Prim and Finnick screaming with pain in unison. The flames have covered both their bodies and she can no longer recognize them. Her screams mix with theirs until they are gone. Until she is the only one left screaming. And there she stands, letting the flames engulf her as they did to her loved ones. There is no physical pain. Or maybe there would have been, if the emotional pain stabbing at her heart wasn't overwhelming. She is wounded in far too many ways to count. And once again, she becomes the girl on fire._

Katniss opens her eyes and takes a deep breath. Even now, when she was only recounting her dream, it seemed so terrifyingly real. She can feel her heart beating at a fast and staggered pace underneath her chest. Her fingers are no longer clutching the dandelions. They lay strewn on the grass floor and she cannot control her hands from trembling. She feels frustration rise from the bottom of her stomach and escape her lips in the form of a low groan. Her trembling hands find their way to the grass and she is grabbing clumps of them off of the earth. This is about as much anger as she lets out before she hears the footsteps.

Alarmed, she quickly rises to her feet. She swiftly arms her crossbow and takes aim at around the location where she guesses the footsteps are coming from. She knows this precaution is most likely unnecessary, seeing as there hasn't been an attack of any kind in District 12 since the war, but old habits die hard. It is only when she sees the familiar face of Peeta Mellark emerging from the trees that she lowers her weapon.

"You here to finish me off, sweetheart?" he says, eyeing her crossbow. The slight smile on his lips along with his soft tone of voice tell her that he's joking.

"You remember?" she asks.

"Of course. Our first Hunger Games, when you stumbled upon me in my dying state and I was camouflaged with mud and leaves on the ground. You almost stepped on me, and that's what I said. Real?"

She smiles. "Real."

He drops the bag that he was carrying near her feet and proceeds to sit next to the dandelions that she had picked. "It's getting a lot easier. Being able to tell the difference between the real memories and the shiny ones, I mean. It doesn't get to me as much."

Katniss takes her place beside him. They are close enough that she can feel his warmth yet they are not touching. Over the past year, their relationship had grown so that they considered each other a very close friend. Being among only a few hundred other people living in District 12 and having only Haymitch as their only other close companion brought the two closer together. It wasn't always easy to get along, especially in the beginning. Peeta's thoughts and actions were still highly influenced by the tracker jacker venom and Katniss had to be cautious about everything she said and did around him for fear that he would lose control over the tampered memories. It took some time before they could be comfortable with even the slightest touch from each other.

After a while, though, they learned to trust each other again. Slowly, they began to lower their guards and their friendship blossomed. Katniss finally had someone to turn to besides Haymitch whenever the memories became too painful to bear on her own. Peeta was there to comfort her again and she was there to clear his pain and confusion whenever a flashback overtook him. His fits of violent rage became less and less until Katniss finally felt safe in his arms again.

Their relationship wasn't perfect. A sudden touch still causes Peeta to jump back in surprise and there is no guarantee that saying the wrong thing won't make him throw a fit. But considering all that they had been through, this was much more than Katniss could have hoped for. The one thing that she refuses to think about, however, is the possibility that there could be something more between them. This territory is still too scary and confusing to think about. She knows that at one point, she must face the feelings that grows in the pit of her stomach whenever he is around, but for now, it is much easier to just take their relationship as it is.

"That's good. I'm glad," she says.

Peeta gestures to the bag in front of them. "I came by your house earlier to drop off some cheese buns but you were already gone. I was going to wait until you showed up later tonight to give them to you but Dr. Aurelius called me saying that you missed another one of your sessions and I decided to look for you. I figured you would be here. I brought these in case you were hungry."

Katniss offers him a smile. Even now, he was still concerned for her well-being. "Thanks. I've barely eaten anything all day. I have some nuts and berries that I gathered earlier. What do you say we have a picnic?"

Peeta grabs the bag and lays out its contents on some napkins that he had thought to bring with him. Dividing the food up equally, both him and Katniss got one cheese bun, a peach, and a few grapes. To this, Katniss adds a few nuts and berries that she had collected that morning. For a while, neither of them talk but it is not an uncomfortable silence that is shared between them. In fact, Katniss is glad that they don't always have to fill the air with conversation. She finds that being able to just sit down and take in each other's presence is a sign of how good their friendship is.

Once there is nothing left on their napkins except for a few grapes, nuts, and berries, Peeta gazes towards Katniss with an incomprehensible expression on his face. She can tell that he wants to say something but is too afraid of bringing up a touchy subject. Remembering what the Finnick from her subconscious had suggested and resenting herself for feeling an obligation to carry out his request, she nods for him to go ahead and say whatever he was thinking.

"You left early this morning," he starts off tentatively.

Katniss nods. "I'm sorry I didn't wait for you. I knew you were going to stop by but I just couldn't sleep. And I couldn't stand being by myself in that house."

"Because of the nightmares." There was no need for him to question it.

"Their ghosts are everywhere, Peeta," Katniss whispers. "Everywhere I turn, it's as if they're there. Especially in that house, with Prim."

She feels his hand lightly touch her arm. "You could have came to me, you know. No matter what time it was, I wouldn't have minded. Even if you didn't want to talk about it, I would have been there for you. I _am_ here for you."

She feels herself inching closer to him, easing herself into his warmth. "I know. But I wanted to be alone for a bit."

Peeta let his fingers stray upwards, twisting them into her hair. Instead of this action making her feel uncomfortable like it surely would have in the early days of their complicated relationship, she found it comforting. She lets her body lean onto him as he continues to play with her hair.

"It's funny. I always thought that there would be nothing to be afraid of once the war was over and the Capitol was taken down. But I guess there's always going to be something to be afraid of," Peeta says.

Katniss knows this all too well. If she wasn't scared anymore, then the nightmares wouldn't plague her every night. Perhaps she could face her mother again, and stare directly at the sorrow that is sure to be in her eyes. Maybe her relationship with Gale would grow back from what could now only be described as cordial. Could she even venture back to the Capitol, and see the faces of those she's made friends with there? Would a future with a family and kids be possible? She closes her eyes.

"What are you afraid of?"

There's a slight pause before he answers. "That this won't be the end to our corrupt society. That the war wasn't enough to show people how violence and power isn't the answer. I'm afraid that the venom in me won't ever fully go away. That I'll always have to question what's real and what isn't."

She feels his muscles tense up before he utters his next sentence. "I'm afraid of losing you."

Her stomach twists as she hears him say the same thing that she had been thinking. A world where she no longer had Peeta was unthinkable. She needed him there, alive. No. More than alive. _Living. _She looks up at him and stares fiercely into his bright blue eyes. "You won't lose me. We've been through too much together to lose each other now. Especially when there's a chance that we can be happy again."

"I don't even know how to be happy anymore, Katniss. I know how to keep myself busy and I can keep the bad feelings locked up, but it's not the same thing as happiness."

Katniss feels her hands searching for his. When their fingers intertwine, she closes her eyes again. "Well, we haven't really been trying, have we? Maybe if we tried together, we could get there."

"Maybe," he agrees. He uses his free hand and tucks it between her arm and side and gives her a light tickle. "Maybe we can start tonight, with this dinner. With everyone."

Katniss sighs and gives him a slight smile. "Maybe we shouldn't push it."


End file.
